I am curious about the definitive stamps, those which are not the “beautiful stamps” but are printed in much larger quantities and avalaible on sale for a long time.
As I have been in four countries for several months these last years, I noticed that there were some interesting differences between France and the other countries.
In Lithuania, Taiwan, and Egypt, there were different types of definitive stamps, but with more or less the same topic (national symbol designed in differents ways in Lithuania, fruits in Taiwan, antique art in Egypt).
In France, there is only one type of definitive stamp (only the colour changes), the “Marianne”. The design sometimes changes, but it has been six years that it looks like this.
We have a debate in the French category to know if it is ugly or not. In my opinion, we (French people) may find it ugly because we are used to it, but it isn’t that bad, knowing that it is an engraved stamp.
So what do you think? And how are the definitve stamps in your country? Please show us pictures
These are not too popular as definitives are often used to combine with older stamps and they’re quite big due to the matrix code. The different values are part of a puzzle.
In India, we have a series of definitive stamps. In general, I don’t like Indian definitives, very dull colours and little to no detailing. Even new defivities look like they are from 30-40 years ago. I never use them on any of my mail.
Currently, we are in series 11 named “Builders of Modern India”. The list includes politicians, artists, scientists, freedom fighters and some great kings from the medieval era. I am not a fan of these, as I don’t like personality stamps.
In Serbia, definitive editions are not issued specifficaly as named series, but designs lead to conclusuon that there are some series. Since 2006 we had a few series. Many of them were reissued.
These stamps are not very inspirative to me. I don’t like very much the current biggest series of flowers and fruits, since they are not ilustrations but pictures. I have to use definitive stamps and it is useful with low face values stamps to reach apropriate postage, since there are no stamps that cover full airmail postage for any country.
Currently are available: all Children’s online safety stamps, all herbs and fruits except 1 RSD lavender stamp, 23 RSD Nikola Tesla stamp from Prominent Serbs series, 27 RSD Žiča monastery, 30 RSD St. Sava temple and 3 RSD vaccination stamp.
(From https://www.accp-asso.com/post/chut-c-est-un-secret)
The blue one is for domestic mail, the red one is for France and other French territories. I never use them. I didn’t even know they existed until about ten years ago - when you ask stamps in post offices, they give you the commemorative ones. I reluctantly used the 5 XPF ones only once - when prices rose and OPT hadn’t issued new 5 XPF commemorative stamps yet.
You can see more definitive stamps here : What are your country's current definitives?
Thanks for explaining!
I found:
